


Pruning

by Wallwalker



Category: V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/F, Pre-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valerie couldn't keep their roses alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pruning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AR](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=AR).



> This is a bit more bitter than sweet, I'm afraid. I tried to make it sweeter but the narrator ran away with the idea and it didn't work out that way. Regardless, I do hope that you enjoy it!

I could not keep our roses alive.

I don't know how Ruth did what she did, how she kept them blossoming so perfectly. Under her care they were lovely, perfect and red and full of life, the most perfect expression of love. But if she left, even for a few days - to take a role for a director who didn't care that she'd been all but blacklisted, or to visit the few relatives that she had left who hadn't disowned her - they suffered.

I would try to care for them; she would leave me very specific instructions. And yet, when I as much as touched them, they wilted. They were never as healthy or as green as they had been with Ruth. Petals and leaves fell, and their crimson blooms faded. Once, when she had been gone for a week, I was terrified after five days that they would all be dead before she returned. But she would always come back, and even when they were in a terrible state, she would never be angry. She she would hold me and kiss me and promise that it was all right, that she knew that I didn't have her green thumb and that she would take care of everything. She would start caring for them again, and in a few days or a few weeks - depending on how much damage I had unwittingly done - they would be fine again, as vibrant as ever.

We hardly ever spoke of it, except when she had just arrived home and the topic couldn't be avoided. But I remember one time, when I was sleepless with some small worry, when Ruth turned her head to face me, her eyes half-open. "Val?" She had said, very softly.

"Yes, darling?" I'd answered, trying to smile. I don't even remember what I was so worried about, now. It had seemed so important at the time, but now... well, I suppose I've been forced to have a new perspective on such things. "What is it?"

"I think that I know why you have such trouble with the roses," she said, her voice blurred with sleepiness.

I felt myself shiver, as if in a sudden chill. "Why?" I whispered back.

"You never use my pruning shears, do you?" And she smiled, not waiting for an answer. "I know that you don't. You're too gentle. You don't want to hurt the roses, so you never prune them. But sometimes the sickly roses need to be pruned, to protect the healthy ones."

"But that cuts part of them away," I said, feeling ridiculous as I stated the obvious. "It doesn't feel right."

She didn't answer, except to roll over in bed and wrap one arm around me. I could tell she was asleep again in short order, from the sound of her breathing, and there was little to do but to turn and let her nestle against my back and try to sleep as well.

The next morning, over breakfast, the two of us were sitting at the table, Ruth still reading the newspaper and me gathering dishes to clean up. "Ruth?" I asked, my voice wavering only slightly.

"Yes, Valerie, what is it?"

"I wanted to ask you something. It's about what you said last night, about the roses -"

"Roses?" She looked at me oddly, her brow furrowed. "I told you that I wasn't upset about that. Why must you worry so much?"

"But you told me," I insisted. "Last night, after we'd gone to bed. You were telling me why roses needed to be pruned, and..." I trailed off, seeing the deepening confusion on her face.

"I don't remember anything like that, dearheart," she said, her voice puzzled. "Are you sure that you weren't dreaming?"

I was certain that I hadn't been dreaming. I was also certain that arguing the point would only upset us both, and it hardly seemed worth it, not when Ruth had finally come home from another acting job and we had the first day together in a week to look forward to. "I may have been dreaming," I said, and then smiled, trying to look unaffected, although my heart was still pounding. "Never mind, Ruth. It wasn't as important as all that."

"All right," Ruth said, "as long as you're sure."

"Quite sure," I lied, hoping that she would not notice, or that she would notice but let it lie.

I could not say for sure why it bothered me so. I could not say it then, when Ruth and I spent lazy days lounging and working on puzzles together and cooking the French chicken dish that she had liked so well for our supper. But I think that I might be able to say it now that Ruth is gone, now that I am too weak and in too much pain to stand. I have had far too much time to think in this terrible place. I know full well that I am going to die here. It is only a matter of time, and I cannot help but wonder what it is they are doing to me. What plan is my death meant to further? But they will not tell me - I have asked, and asked again, and they behave as if my words are childish babble. A part of me had always hoped that if I had to die, I would die in some heroic way, defending that which I had loved. But when Ruth died, my spirit followed, and I no longer had the strength for such things.

But I have tried to understand why what she said about the roses bothered me so, at least well enough to say it to myself. I've tried many times, before and after. I remember sitting with Ruth, her head nestled in my lap and her hand in mine, and I remember thinking that I would have been perfectly happy in that moment, if only I could understand what it was in her that felt the need to tell me about pruning. If only she could have remembered, told me that it was all going to be all right.

She could not, however, and so I have had to puzzle it out for myself And now, at the end of my life, I think that I am finally beginning to see something that I had never grasped before, something that I wish I could tell her, if only she were here. If only I could see her one last time, before I breathe my last. It is simply this: Ruth strove for perfection in her gardening, and she grew those roses in a way that would make them perfect. She wanted her flowers to be beautiful - she said that if they were a gift for me, then they had to be as beautiful as any roses in the world could be. And she understood that there was a price, that sometimes the bad plants had to be cut away for the better ones to grow. She was willing to do it, to do what felt to me like murder, so that we would have the most perfect roses.

I can begin to grasp it now, but I cannot agree with her. To say that it was right would mean that it would be right to cut away parts of my time with Ruth, the heated arguments and the cold silent evenings. The times when we were not perfect, but still in love. If I had the choice to prune those memories away, so that the others would be stronger, I would not do it, even though those memories are not pleasant. It does not matter that they are unpleasant, not to me, for they are still memories of Ruth, and therefore precious to me beyond measure. I will not let anyone take them from me, even now. They have taken so much, but they will not take my memories.

Any of them.


End file.
